Immigration Show of Shame

Immigration Show of Shame

IMMIGRATION SHOW OF SHAME
- Dammy Sho

The overwhelming turnouts of graduates at the NIS aptitude test shows the alarming rate of unemployment ravaging the country. It left no fewer than 15 lives lost with a lot of casualties nationwide. At times like this I feel ashamed calling myself a Nigerian. When did interview centers become death zones or rather put, battle field?

Imagine, struggling through school, you serve your fatherland and finally enters the job market only to meet untimely death due to negligence and nonchalant attitude, greed and selfishness from the powers that be. Nigeria at 53 and yet we seem not to know the way forward. Things are turning from bad to worst. In the first instance, is it appropriate for job seekers to pay for job applications?

The preambles of the 1999 constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria has it that the government will make the country a land of bright, equal and better opportunities for all citizens. This in effect means that everyone will get the chance to realize their God given potentials so that if it is a paid job, you get it and not paying for it and if you want to appraise self employment, so be it.

Statistics shows that six million candidates applied for a 5000 opening job, which will amount to not less than six billion naira, which I see as a form of extortion on the part of the Immigration minister in person of Mr Abba Morro.

This is to show the alarming rate of unemployment in the country, yet the Minister for Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala in her report said the Government created not less than 1.6 million jobs last year. I am using this medium as an open confrontation to Dr Okonjo Iweala to come tell Nigerians which agency created the jobs and who were the beneficiary of the jobs. If her report was right where did these over 6 million come from? Or were the jobs given out to aliens and ghosts?

24 hours after the death of these Nigerian graduates, the presidency is yet to issue a statement to the bereaved families. Why is the presidency this callous?

Few months ago, when a former minister of the FCT, Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai referred to the president as being docile, I felt the minister had taken it too far, but today, I seem to share the opinion of the minister. For crying out loud, the president is supposed to be the No 1 citizen in the country, he is the father of the nation.

Over 100 lives of innocent children were lost and the Yobe and Adamawa attack about a month ago by the Boko haram sect yet that was the best time for the presidency to pop champagne and engage in paparazzi. No fewer than 100 lives were lost in fresh attack in Kaduna, yet our government are not concerned.

Is it that the Presidency and our so called leaders has no conscience? He is a parent, a father, if his children were victims in the Yobe massacre, would he have gone ahead with the centenary award which was just another waste of public funds for personal interest?

The youths are supposed to be the leaders of tomorrow, why is the nation sacrifising the blood of tomorrow leaders.
Listening to a radio programme on 102.3 fm, a caller implored Nigerians and Youths to go on fastings and prayers for the nation to which I totally disagree, Japan and China are world powers today, they did not get there by praying or building churches and mosques. They had visionary leaders, selfless men, Go Figures who has the love and well being of the citizens at heart and not callous leaders as in the Nigeria case.

Will Nigeria ever have a Moses that will lead us to the promised land? A land filled with milk and honey, yet majority lives below poverty line, Nigeria is naturally blessed with crude oil yet we import fuel and our petrol stations queue are unbearable, we sell clothes yet walk about naked.

Every sector of the economy has been paralyzed. Privatization has become the order of the day. The only department working right now is the department geared towards 2015 elections. I weep for the unborn generation.

The population of candidates writing WAEC, NECO and JAMB nationwide annually is more than the immigration applicants yet we have never had such incidence.

The Ogun state center was anotheir incidence entirely, The immigration officers on ground at a point started shooting sporadically to scare applicants who were trying to force their way into the stadium. The tension was so high that it took the effort of three other officers to stop a particular officer from firing a target shot at an applicant who was confronting him, and there is a video to that effect which I personally recorded from a safe distant. Can you imagine that.

The minister of interior, Mr Abba Moro even added insult to injury when he blamed the deceased for their death saying it was due to their impatience. That was a careless and unsound statement on the part of the minister. He should learn to talk when it comes to situations like this.

Few months back, when the minister was asked the reason for the payment of one thousand naira by the applicants, he said the fee was charged by the consulting firm. We want the minister to give the name of the recruitment agency to the press for public scrutiny or how will somebody collect over 6 billion naira and yet had no brain to organize a seemless recruitment exercise

The minister should be sanctioned and brought to book because if nothing is done, God forbid this keg of gun powder explodes in our faces. Remember it happened some years back in Ibadan. The most pathetic side to this immigration saga is that those who will eventually get the job will not even write the test.

What we are fighting for right now is fighting for our rights, Rights to good roads, free education, uninterrupted power supply, medical health facility as contained in the 1999 constitution.

Let us rise up against the wickedness of our leaders so that the next generation won’t blame us.